Sensor-Embedded Automatic Grasping Forceps for Precise Corneal Suture in Penetrating Keratoplasty

In penetrating keratoplasty (PKP), the proper corneal suture placement is very important for successful transplantation and restoring functional vision. Generating sutures with accurate depth is difficult for the surgeon because of the tissue's softness, lack of depth information, and hand tremors. In this paper, an automatic cornea grasping device is proposed, which detects when the device reaches the target suture depth. When the device reaches the target depth, the device rapidly grasps the cornea to prevent error induced by human hand tremors. In the paper, the performance of the proposed sensor, the actuator, and the device are experimentally verified with ex vivo experiment. The result showed that the proposed device could enhance the accuracy and precision of the corneal suture depth.